Dear Comrades!

I have received your document No. 24962 with an extract from the Presidium's resolution of October 7.

I am compelled in all conscience to say that this resolution is so politically illiterate and so stupid that it makes one feel sick. "...The Presidium is compelled to absolve itself of responsibility..." That is what capricious young ladies do, not adult politicians. You will not absolve yourselves of responsibility—you will triple it.

If the Commissariat of Public Education does not answer you and does not fulfill its duty toward you, then you are obligated to lodge complaints backed by documents. You are not children, after all, not to understand this.

When did you lodge complaints? Where is the copy? Where are the documents and proofs?

And in my opinion, the entire Presidium and Vinograduova should be put in prison for a week for inaction.

If the Commissariat of Public Education "does not issue busts" (when did you demand them? from whom? copy and document? when did you appeal?), then you should have fought for your right. But to "absolve oneself of responsibility" — that is the manner of capricious young ladies and silly Russian intellectuals.

Forgive me for expressing my opinion frankly, and accept a communist greeting from one who hopes

that you will be taught a lesson by prison for the inaction of authority, and from one deeply indignant at you,

Lenin

October 12, 1918.

First published in 1933

in Lenin Miscellany XXI

Printed from the manuscript